The Terminator Franchise Needs to Return to Its Roots If It Wants to Be Relevant

James Cameron’s real directorial debut (not counting Piranha II: The Spawning), The Terminator, works so well to this day because it masterfully balances just about every genre in the book. With a relatively limited budget and just a few scenes, it manages to flesh out a post-apocalyptic future ravaged by war — there’s the war genre. In those few scenes, it also displays inventive, well-crafted, practical effects-generated space vehicles and sells the time travel at the narrative’s core with a simple shot of two men stepping out of blue, electrified orbs — there’s sci-fi. As for drama and romance, one of those two men develops a fully believable chemistry and relationship with the protagonist.

What genre is The Terminator most closely associated with? Action. But what is it really? Horror. “I’ll be back” is one of the definitive one-liners, but it’s far less cheeky than anything seen in the following year’s Commando. It is really both a simple statement of intention and a veiled threat, delivered by a thing that can fully follow through on that threat. It’s frightening to go up against something with no reservation about taking life, and when there isn’t a comparable future-bot standing next to you, it can feel hopeless. And what is hopelessness if not the sibling to horror?

Why Is Getting Back to That Fear-Based Throughline Integral to the Franchise’s Future?

The 1984 original film was a decently sized hit ($78.4 million worldwide against a budget of $6.4 million) but Terminator 2: Judgment Day was of another level. Sure, it came with a far higher budget of $102 million, but it still managed to generate nearly $518 million worldwide. From there, though, reviews grew more negative and total box office hauls went down. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines doubled its massive $200-million price tag, as opposed to T2’s quintupling its price tag. Even with its more accessible PG-13 rating, Terminator Salvation made even less ($371 million against $200 million).

The return of Schwarzenegger buoyed the subsequent Terminator Genisys a bit ($440.6 million against $155 million), but it still wasn’t enough to give the franchise the successful reboot it so clearly craved. Things only got worse with the release of Terminator: Dark Fate which, quality-wise, was the reboot the franchise deserved all along. But audience interest was burned out, and it only cleared its $185-million price tag by about $75 million, making it a substantial box office bomb.

The takeaway is that, even with Cameron back on as producer, the continued presence of Schwarzenegger, and the return of Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, Dark Fate proved there’s a cap to the IP’s popularity and financial viability. T2 did so well because, in 1991, its visual effects were absolutely revolutionary. It was also bolstered by reviews nearly as glowing as the original film’s. It appealed to individuals outside the fanbase.

[RELATED: 30 Years Later, Terminator Fans Are Still Discovering a Major Sarah Connor Moment]

That’s not the case now, which means one of two things needs to happen. It either needs to show audiences something entirely new, which seems difficult since they’ve already seen the seemingly immortal cyborg and liquid metal T-1000, or the budget needs to go way down to reduce the risk of financial loss. A great way to do that is by going back to the original film’s playbook, which was primarily comprised of being character-focused and having a limited scope with allusions to and brief glimpses of more grandiose events in the future.

If the novelty of seeing two literal killing machines go head-to-head feels played out (as Rise of the Machines, Genisys, and Dark Fate proved with increasing clarity) and showing the future war itself seems superfluous (as Salvation proved), there’s no point in trying to continuously hammer that nail. Go back to it being one, two, even three flesh-and-blood humans on the run from something that is nearly impossible to best. That’s what helps make the original film so compelling: Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are likable. The audience doesn’t want to see them die. And, since the audience has seen what the T-800 can do (e.g. punching a guy’s heart out in its very first scene and coldly gunning down a suburban woman in broad daylight) and how little it feels doing it, they’re afraid they will die.

What would you like to see in the future of the Terminator franchise? Let us know in the comments below!